Here’s a good one - one is related to the other. As it turned out, I had become so obnoxious (every statement rife with clever satire, puns and esoteric meaning /s) that this coworker had basically ghosted me to whatever extent is possible when you sit next to someone at work.
This was an anti-car, anti-postwar suburb thing. I was an avid enjoyer of Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, James Howard Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere and a host of other urban-related books. Yes, I love walkable cities etc but nobody ever appointed me to be the Great Judge of All People, and I have paid dearly for it.
At the end of the day we all have our plusses and minuses and I’m certainly in no position to judge or comment on most people just trying to get through their lives.
Why do you feel it of value to attribute your behaviors/functioning to being on the spectrum, as opposed to having an unconventional personality, or just being weird?
I tend to be somewhat dubious about many mental health diagnoses - ESPECIALLY self diagnoses as described upthread. But whatever the specific assigned cause, isn’t what is important that you are aware of your behaviors and - if you care to - that you take efforts to change/accommodate them?
Also, how do you decide what weight to place on the recent diagnosis of a condition that was apparently not apparent to your counselor of many years?
This has nothing to do with mental health as autism isn’t a mental illness. Understanding one’s own neurodivergence and cognitive abilities DOES allow one to make changes to one’s behavior and make accommodations. Putting a name to what has caused me enormous anxiety (which was, in fact, diagnosed by a health professional) my whole life has been a huge weight off my shoulders.
Because in my case it’s been very damaging, to the extent that if I were to wake up at age 20, knowing what I know now, I would be able to make a deliberate and valiant effort not to hurt people, even if that meant not getting married.
Yes it is, except that it took me close to 20 years to dig through my giant ball of crap, with the help of several therapists (I’ve moved a lot because of my work) to get me to the point where I could actually see some of what I was doing. When I explain it to my wife I liken it to having a bunch of veils in front of my eyes, and every so often a veil lifts and I see things a bit more clearly. I could honestly say that five years ago I wasn’t there yet. If someone had suggested to me then that I might be on the spectrum my reaction would have been explosive. It has taken me that long to be aware of those behaviours, and how toxic they can be.
In my case “counselors” over several years. If I had a counselor actually live with me and go to work with me he/she would probably have sorted it out fairly quickly. Unfortunately, my counselors were depending on self-reporting, some of which was probably not the most accurate or objective stuff for the longest time.
And regarding this, I have, for real, been off on a bike ride with random ruminations going on when this has happened. Where I’m riding somewhere and, suddenly, it occurs to me why someone was hurt or offended some particular day ten years ago, and why my behaviour was off.
IME, a lot of the therapy has happened well after a given session.
And, not withstanding the shitty behaviour that I’ve inflicted on people, I don’t think that I’m an inherently bad person. Rather, I’ve been an inherently fucked up person.
Because it’s information about yourself. Knowing that you get sick from eating strawberries is useful, knowing WHY you get sick from strawberries rather than “guess I’m just weird that way” has greater value. If you can understand that your behavior is, at least, partly rooted in a specific condition, you can better research it, explain it, find mitigation tactics and just know that it’s deeper than “I’m a weirdo”.
It also lays a marker for how you’re different. Most people, I expect, assume that other people largely think like they do. Knowing that there’s a specific neurological reason for why you think X and most everyone else thinks Y can help alleviate a lot of “Why don’t you see this like I do?” and assumptions about other people’s behavior and reactions. Not just because of some personality quirk or behavior but an actual reason related to how you’re wired.
As mentioned upthread, autism isn’t a mental illness, but it is usually diagnosed by a mental health professional, and because autism typically has so many comorbid conditions along with it (ADHD, anxiety and OCD are pretty common), proper diagnosis requires a professional skilled in differential diagnosis. Because of this, and because not every case presents exactly the same, people with neurodivergence get missed or misdiagnosed.
Having a diagnosis instantly connects you to a community of people struggling with the same issues you have, and the ability to learn what interventions are the most effective for a given issue. Sure you could spend your whole life, as the OP has, trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on, taking a crapshoot approach to your various issues without ever seeing a pattern, or you could have a paradigm that unites all of those issues into one cohesive whole and suddenly have a host of resources at your disposal. Diagnosis is far and away the most efficient route to getting help and getting better.
This is actually key to things. Even if autism is just some nice package within which you can have a certain set of behaviours, then it gives me something to work with and something to predict and mitigate.
Yes! For my ADHD, in addition to medication, which has been amazing for me, diagnosis introduced me to the world of “ADHD productivity” which is a community of people for whom traditional productivity advice does not work. There are a whole bunch of people out there sharing tips and tricks for ADHD brains specifically, because they all have specific characteristics, including but not limited to: difficulties with attention regulation, task initiation, prioritization, emotional regulation, executive function. Because I know that my brain has a difficult time prioritizing tasks, I’ve found ways to eliminate the need for prioritization altogether. Because I know I have a hard time keeping house, I’ve found the benefits of minimalism and visual time pieces. All resources I found because of my diagnosis. More tips and tricks than you could ever imagine. I’ve even had some mindset change stuff with an online coaching group. It has made a real difference in my life! I got farther in one year than I had in decades, when I finally knew where to look for what I needed.
There are plenty such resources for autistic adults as well and I wish you well in finding them!
Thank you for the informative responses.
I assure everyone that I had no intention of offending or insulting anyone by referring to a mental health diagnosis. I thought such designation accurate, appropriate and nonjudgmental, in that my familiarity w/ ASD reflects the APA’s diagnostic criteria and my experience, similar to Spice Weasel’s, that
And I remain highly dubious of many/most self diagnoses. But that does not apply to the OP.
It’s a little confusing (to me, even) but ADHD and Autism are considered neurodevelopmental conditions, meaning they are present from birth and develop in early childhood due to abnormal brain development (sorry to call us all abnormal, but it is what it is.)
For example, one typical childhood process is the pruning of neurons, in which the brain decides to ditch all the unnecessary neural pathways and focus on the primary ones. In autistic children, this routine pruning does not occur, so it is usually around toddlerhood that signs may start showing. Some people may show no obvious signs until they get to adolescence and the social problems become really apparent. Some people like my son may have other associated delays, such as fine motor, gross motor and speech problems that lead to early diagnosis - but may not require intensive support their entire lives. And some people are profoundly disabled. There’s a popular expression, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” The diversity among autistic presentations is astonishing, hence the “spectrum” part of the label.
Note: somehow this became a reply to Happy_Lendervedder. That wasn’t the intent.
I’m not sure who did a self diagnosis but it wasn’t me. I wanted a qualified software specialist to give me an objective assessment of my software. I have a neighbour who says that he is on the spectrum but is self-diagnosed. For me, there’s too much at stake here for me to gamble on an internet self assessment, regardless of how helpful that may be in terms of providing some initial guidance.
Again, I think that it’s wonderful how you and your husband are dealing with your son’s autism. My parents (born 1920, went through the Depression and WW II) were of the “what will people think of us” mindset. I have a sister whose family doc recommended psychological help of some sort. My parents saw this as some sort of insult and embarrassment so they ignored it. My sister estranged herself from the family almost 30 yrs ago.
Because of my upbringing I really didn’t realize the toxicity of it until about 20 years ago.
So kudos to you for supporting your son so much.
Yes, there’s a ton of it and a lot is related to the autistic trait of misinterpreting things, which I did a lot, at the cost of a lot of opportunities, particularly in my personal life. And at the cost of a lot of happiness in my marriage. I’m retiring in about 150-ish days and there is a ton of regret that I have to sort out, though the formal diagnosis does make it somewhat easier to do so.
Another benefit of diagnosis, it can lead to more self-compassion when we do make mistakes.
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve encountered this explanation before.
When I first heard about Asberger’s syndrome, I couldn’t help wondering if I had it, but as I read and heard more about Asberger’s/autism and its characteristics, I thought, “Nah. Maybe there’s a little overlap, but there’s way too much that I don’t identify with at all.” But now I wonder if I maybe have one or two neural pathways that didn’t get pruned, or got pruned later or differently, in a manner more like someone on the autism spectrum than someone who’s 100% neurotypical. Then again, is anyone 100% neurotypical?
That is very interesting, is there a technical name for this?
More here on the brain pruning thing:
The thing is, the “neurodiverse” label has been broadened to the point of being (in my opinion) meaningless, and it’s more of a political advocacy thing than a biological reality thing. We have a limited understanding of how the brain works which makes it difficult to narrowly define anyone from a neurological standpoint. Some people now claiming “neurodiversity” have PTSD or OCD, which really to me just looks like people trying to jump on an Island of Misfit Toys bandwagon.
Autism is characterized by difficulties in two primary domains: social/communication and restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests. I’m not 100% sure of the way the diagnosis shifted from the DSM-IV but my understanding is that you used to have Asperger’s, which was a kind of high functioning autism, and then Pervasive Developmental Disorder, which is what we’d now call autism spectrum disorder Level 2 or Level 3. A lot of people who used to be considered Asperger’s are now considered Level 1 ASD. The upshot of that is that people who identify as autistic could range from some extremely high functioning virtuoso to someone who is nonverbal with major cognitive impairment.
And then there are people like my son, who is Level 2 (not a prognosis but a description of the level of support needed at this moment in time - Level 2 is “substantial support needed.”) But his Level 2 is extremely advanced in some areas, such as mathematics and visual-spatial reasoning, and extremely delayed in basic social skills, to the point that he’s in the bottom 1-5% in communication and independent skills. That also comes along with significant sensory issues. And yet… he almost never has meltdowns. I think when he’s upset he goes back to baseline faster than the average young one. He’s the happiest kid I know.
I get frustrated when people we know look at my kid and are like, “He’s smart, he’ll do fine. Oh, he makes good eye contact. Don’t worry about it.”
When three separate teams of professionals and even our freaking insurance company has admitted: this kid needs intensive therapy right now!
But people don’t see it. Because they are looking for a stereotype.
Here’s a cool wheel that explains how people can be advanced or struggle in different domains. Some have proposed this as a better way of envisioning autism than a “spectrum.” Imagine the possibilities!
I do wonder about the whole “Asperger’s vs PDD” smushing them into one diagnosis.
It has often seemed to me that my daughter (who would have been called Asperger’s) has reasonably average functioning… except that most of the brain functioning that would ordinarily have gone into socialization and emotional regulation for a neurotypical kid has instead gone directly into her math/logical ability. Like, I think that in her those two things are very closely related. And much of the reason that it’s really hard for her to follow illogical human relating is because it isn’t logical like math. And I definitely know kids who have ASD where it’s not like that, and I feel like they’re qualitatively different than my kid.
And then, the brain synapse thing is really interesting, especially if they really see that in a wide variety of kids with ASD. If that’s the mechanism, I wonder whether my kid has the pruning happen overtime in the math part of her brain and not in the other parts?